Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - The Family Remains

A LOT OF TRIGGER WARNINGS
despite liking this book it was not mentioned before any of said trigger warnings were brought up in dialogue that these would happen so just be careful before reading. personally this book was the star to my reading journey as i haven’t prior to this book ever had a drive to read, thus meaning i hadn’t read the first one (due to what i have found this seems to be the sequel) despite this i still found this book east to follow along with. :)

Content Warnings

orianaisreading's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

WHOLE LOT OF TRIGGER WARNINGS

I didn’t realise when I bought this book that it was a sequel so I’d have to buy the first one as well.

However, at times, what a hot mess. It was hard to follow all the characters and storylines that were all happening all at once. And there were unanswered questions.

1. Does Lucy know that it wasn’t a suicide pact manipulated by David but that all three of them were killed by Henry?
2. The police officer knows Henry also killed Birdie but the book just ends with no mention of it. Does he just realise he can’t get him and drops the case? He didn’t seem like the type to just drop it.
3. The police officer says there’s no one who cares about who killed Birdie but also says her brother messaged him every day?

Also, it felt like the officer being black was a bit of a fake attempt at diversity. If he was just black and that was that it wouldn’t be mentioned so many times but also it only scraps the surface to what a black officer would face in London. So it didn’t do a good job of saying he’s black and that’s just that and characters can be black without it being everything about them and it failed to do so by the sheer amount of times it was mentioned but it also didn’t do a good job of dealing with the nuances of it.

Contrary to other comments the last line of the epilogue made complete sense to me. The emptiness in Henry would not have been filled by a family reunion, not matter that he loves them. He is not psychopathic, he feels empathy for others, but he’s deeply troubled and will continue to be so.

The book was kind of dragged 150 pages more than it should have (but so is this review). Rant over.

Content Warnings

helloits_jen's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A really quick and mostly easy read. Didn’t enjoy it anywhere as much as the first one though and didn’t really get a sense of the story being ‘complete’.

Content Warnings

pageswithamber's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

lottiemilne's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

sweet ending until the last sentence (????) i enjoyed how the characters crossed over

Content Warnings

librariangeorgia's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I honestly feel honoured to have gotten a copy of this arc - it’s one of the few 2022 titles I was highly looking forward to reading.

I’ll be honest, it took me a few chapters to get into this one. But that is purely because it’s been so long since I read the first book, that I’d forgotten what had happened and ended up rereading the last couple of chapters of THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS.

After that, I absolutely flew through this. I found it gripping and it really kept me guessing, especially with there being multiple perspectives from different time periods that haven’t been made clear as to how they are linked.

There were a lot of references in the first quarter to the previous book which really helped to refresh my memory as to who all the characters were (and there’s quite a few!) and what had happened to them but it wasn’t too obvious what was being done.

I am so glad to get the full story as to what happened in THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS and to see how their lives progressed after it. Getting to know the new characters was really interesting as you think you know it all after the chaotically toxic family reveals in the previous book but apparently that wasn’t enough. I really liked how all the storylines were linked together and I am especially curious about that ending. I do wonder if there is a third book in the works - I certainly wouldn’t complain if there was!!

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